The Returning Hero

by Soraya Lane

  “The thing with this dog is that he’s extremely easy to teach, so long as you make your commands and actions clear and consistent,” Brett told her. “You don’t have to be Sam, but you do have to understand how he learns.”

  “Do you mean like how they need to be rewarded by play?”

  Brett grinned. “Exactly. This dog was chosen for the dog detection unit because when we tested him as a youngster, his commitment to a game of ball was unwavering.”

  “So I need to play with him?” she asked, staring down at the dog.

  “Yeah, you need to play with him, and you need to let him be with you all the time, because that’s how Sam treated him whenever they were together.”

  Jamie was laughing and he loved seeing her happy, as if for a moment they were both here for any reason other than because of what had happened—that they were just two friends catching up under the sun, like old times.

  “You guys always act so tough, but when it comes to your dogs, you’re like marshmallows.”

  “It’s part of the bonding process, you know that,” he told her, pretending to be offended. “And we are tough, I’ll have you know.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you all tell each other, but really? You’re just lonely when you’re away and want a warm body in your bed to snuggle up to.”

  Brett laughed, unable to help himself. “How did you figure us all out so fast, huh?”

  Jamie held up her hand to shield her face from the sun. “So are we just going to start with the basics?”

  He nodded. “Why don’t we run through sit, stay and heel, then I’ll teach you how to play with a ninety-pound canine. Sound good?”

  The smile she gave him made him drop his gaze, focus on the dog instead, because he was walking a dangerous line between helping out a friend’s widow and wanting to be here because he’d always liked Jamie and still did.

  And if he were honest with himself, it’s why he’d taken so long to come back. It hadn’t just been about his injury, it hadn’t just been because he was struggling to come to terms with losing his best human friend and his canine best friend, it was because when it came to Jamie, he didn’t trust himself. He could have all the best intentions in the world, but without Sam here, he was screwed.

  * * *

  Jamie watched as Brett moved across the grass, Bear running along beside him and then bounding ahead to catch the ball.

  “You just need to have fun with him,” Brett called out. “Let him know you love playing just as much as he does.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh at them as they charged around her small lawn.

  “It’s not about the space, it’s the quality of time you spend with him. He wants you to guide him, to be his leader and his equal, too. He will always look to you for direction, because that’s what he’s been trained to do.”

  “So in other words he wants me to be his wife?”

  They both laughed and she watched as Brett nodded to the dog to follow him.

  “You must miss your dog,” she said, wishing she could take the words back the moment they left her lips.

  Brett’s mouth fixed in a hard line, his jaw clamped before he took a visibly deep breath. “Every goddamn day,” he told her, running a hand through his short brown hair. “Teddy hardly left my side in four years. It was like he always knew what I was thinking before I’d even thought it myself. And then…”

  Jamie felt like her breath had died in her throat, her lungs refusing to cooperate. The day Teddy had died had been the day Sam had died, too.

  They stared at one another. She watched as Brett swallowed. Neither of them wanted to talk about that day, because somehow Brett had made it home and her husband and Brett’s dog had been killed. She wished the comment had never come out of her mouth, but it wasn’t like she could take it back.

  “Have you had any ongoing veterinary care for Bear? I’m hoping after all he did for the army that he’s on a full pension.”

  He’d changed the subject but only just, although she wasn’t complaining.

  “When I collected him he was pretty much healed, on the outside at least,” Jamie told him. “He had a bandaged paw still and lots of missing or singed fur, but they made sure he was almost back to health before letting me take him. And they seemed to look after him pretty well when he was quarantined.”

  “I was the one who carried him back to the truck,” Brett told her, his voice low. “He managed to come toward me, but the ringing in his ears must have been as bad as it was in mine because he couldn’t even walk in a straight line, and his paws and legs were badly burned. There was no part of me that could have tried to get away without helping him, and it was like he wanted to do the same for me.”

  Jamie refused to look away, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation was making her, because she knew how hard it must have been for Brett to talk about what had happened, even just a little.

  “I can’t believe you even managed to lift him, after what had happened to you,” she said softly.

  Brett dropped to his haunches and slung his arm around the dog. “If it hadn’t been for this boy,” he said, stroking the dog’s fur as he spoke, “everyone in that truck would have died that day. It wasn’t until I collapsed that I realized why my body was burning so bad, what a mess my leg was, and then I passed out from the pain and shock. Bear was braver than any of us.”

  Brett was staring past her now, and Jamie didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. It was so nice having him here, having a familiar face to chat to, that she wanted to make sure he stayed for the afternoon.

  “What do you say we take him for a walk?” she suggested.

  Brett smiled, clearly relieved she’d changed the subject completely.

  “Do you usually take him out?” he asked.

  She grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but he’s kind of massive and I’m worried I won’t be able to control him if we come across another dog or something.”

  Brett shook his head. “Did that husband of yours teach you nothing about this dog?”

  She laughed. “No, because it was like they shared the same brain! Bear just did what Sam wanted him to do, like they had some silent communication thing going on, and he went everywhere with him so it wasn’t like I was ever in sole charge.”

  Brett sighed. “Fair call.” He followed her inside and stood back as she locked the doors. “How about you tell me what you’d like to do with him?”

  She checked the side door was locked before gathering Bear’s lead from a drawer and facing Brett.

  “I guess I want to be able to walk down for a coffee and sit without worrying how to handle him if there’s another big dog coming toward us. And walk through the park, throw a ball for him and know he’ll come back when he’s off the leash, that sort of thing.”

  Brett opened the front door and held it open for her, waiting as she clipped the leash to Bear’s collar.

  “He’s too well-trained to have a fight with another dog, and he will never, ever chase a ball and not bring it back to you. It’s why he made the squad in the first place.”

  “Were you with Sam the day he chose him?”

  Brett shook his head. “No, but I remember him being so excited that he’d finally found the perfect partner. Bear was with a family who loved him, but they were moving overseas and had put him up for adoption. When Sam went to see him, he tested him out with a ball and he knew straight away that the black giant was going to be his sidekick.”

  They fell into a comfortable rhythm, walking side by side.

  “Is it okay to talk about him?” Brett asked, his voice an octave lower.

  The question took her by surprise. “Yes.” They walked for a bit more before she continued. “I mean, it’s hard, it’s always hard, but it’s nice talking about him with you.”

  “I half expect him to be at the house when we get back,” Brett said with a smile. “Waiting to give me a telling off about hanging out with his wife.”

  “Yeah.
” Jamie was smiling, too, but it was bittersweet. “I guess I’d become so used to him going away on tours, so for me it just seems like this has just been an especially long one. Like I’m just waiting for him to fly home and pick up where we left off.” It had been the same when her dad had never come home from deployment—like one day he’d just walk through the door again and everything would go back to normal.

  “If it’s too hard having me here…”

  “No,” she blurted. “Having you here is the only good thing that’s happened to me in a long while, so please don’t think you’re making me uncomfortable. It’s the complete opposite.”

  * * *

  Brett was pleased she wanted him here, but every time they talked about Sam made him feel plain weird for being with Jamie, just the two of them. Lucky they had the dog as a distraction, because it meant they had something to focus on other than the fact that nothing was like it had been the last time they’d seen one another.

  “So you just give him a gentle reminder if he walks ahead of you by pulling the lead back,” he told her, closing his hand over it and showing her, “and telling him to heel, but you’re probably not going to need to do that very often.”

  Brett didn’t move his hand when Jamie’s brushed past it, fingers almost closing over his before she realized. It was stupid—they’d touched plenty in the past—but having her warm skin against his reminded him of all the reasons why he shouldn’t have been here. Because there had been a time when he’d wished he’d asked Jamie out, before she’d met Sam, and they were dangerous thoughts to be remembering now that she was his friend’s widow.

  “Brett, I don’t want to bring up what happened again, but I need to ask you one question.”

  He cleared his throat and turned to face her. “Shoot.” So long as he didn’t have to relive what had happened again, he’d tell her what she needed to know. Those memories caught up on him enough without voluntarily calling on them.

  “I keep thinking about the army sending Bear back, once they’d made the decision to retire him. Is it normal for them to care for a dog like that, even though their career is over, and then pay to send them home?”

  Brett couldn’t help smiling at her. Trust Jamie to have figured out that it wasn’t exactly protocol, especially when the handler was no longer alive and able to fight for his dog.

  “Let’s just say that me and the other boys put a fair amount of pressure on our superiors to make sure Bear had a good retirement. I didn’t know he’d be given back to you, but there aren’t that many dogs in the world capable of what he did on a daily basis, and it wasn’t exactly a tough call to send him home a hero.”

  Jamie reached out to him, took him completely by surprise as her hand stayed in place on his shoulder.

  “Well then I guess I owe you a pretty big thanks,” she said, throwing him a smile that made him want to look away, because that smile had always teased him and he didn’t want to think about her like that, not now. “It means a lot to have him here, even if I’m kind of hopeless at the whole business of looking after a dog.”

  Brett fought not to shrug her hand off, and was pleased when it just dropped away.

  “So which cafe are we going to?”

  * * *

  “Skinny latte?”

  Jamie looked up. “How did you guess?”

  He chuckled and ordered, before peering into the cabinet with her. “And I’m also guessing that you want something sweet. Maybe the chocolate peppermint slice?”

  Jamie kept staring at the rows of food, trying to ignore the slice so she wasn’t completely predictable. In the end she gave in to her sweet tooth. “Okay, how about we share a piece?”

  She walked back outside to where they’d left Bear, not liking the idea of just tying him up and leaving him beside a table.

  “He’s fine,” Brett said, pulling her chair out for her and then taking the seat opposite.

  “I can see that. It just seems foreign to me,” she told him.

  “This dog won’t let you down. Trust me. His manners will be better than most of the people in here.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes, but she knew he was probably right. And she also knew that Brett pulling her chair out for her was the kind of gentlemanly thing that not many guys did anymore. Her husband had, so she was used to it, and she liked being treated like a woman.

  Brett’s mobile rang and he punched a button to silence it before answering and mouthing sorry to her. Jamie touched Bear’s head, stroking his fur, not looking at Brett. But she couldn’t help but take notice of what he was saying. The fact that it was Logan, her husband’s other best buddy, made her want to frown and smile simultaneously.

  Part of her was liking being with Brett, but another part of her, like a pang of hunger gnawing at her stomach, wanted Sam back here, too. So she could sit and listen to them talk and laugh and be boys, like she always had. Her husband, Brett and Logan.

  Brett cleared his throat and Jamie’s eyes snapped up to meet his. She had no idea whether he was waiting for her to say something, or whether he was just watching her.

  “Jamie, what do you say?” he asked.

  She raised her eyebrows, wishing she hadn’t been daydreaming. “To what?”

  “Logan’s in town for the next week and he wanted to know if you’re free tonight. We thought we’d go grab a few drinks, catch up.”

  Jamie liked that they were trying to include her, but she didn’t want to be a third wheel. “You guys just hang out. You don’t need to ask me along.”

  Brett put his hand over the phone and leaned toward her, eyes never leaving hers. “Please come,” he said, reaching for her with his other hand, fingers closing over hers. “I’ll pick you up on my way and drop you at your door at the end of the night. Come out and have fun, we both want to take you out.”

  She looked from his eyes to his fingers over hers, wished that it was just a platonic gesture, that his skin against hers wasn’t sending a shiver up and down her spine.

  “Okay,” she said, not needing any more convincing.

  Brett grinned and pulled away, leaning back in his chair again and discussing details with Logan. She was pleased their coffees arrived at the same time as he hung up, needing something to distract her. Somehow she’d gone from hanging out with her husband’s friend, to being on edge about agreeing to a night out. It was only supposed to be an evening with friends, so why was her stomach twisting like she was going on a first date?

  “Sugar?”

  Jamie nodded and reached for it, careful not to touch Brett’s hand again.

  “So Logan’s back for a while, too?” she asked.

  “He’s still working, but he’s based in Australia indefinitely.”

  “And you’re sure he was okay about me tagging along on a boys’ night?”

  Brett cut the chocolate peppermint slice into two pieces and nudged one in her direction. “Since when are you not allowed to tag along on a boys’ night? I don’t recall Sam ever leaving you at home when we used to catch up.”

  “True.” Brett was right, she had always hung out with them. But now that it was just her, she didn’t want them feeling sorry for her and feeling like they had to include her.

  “When was the last time you went out?” he asked.

  “Can I pass on that question?” Jamie laughed and took a bite of the slice. “It’s been a while.”

  “If another guy so much as looks at you he’ll have me to deal with, so you’re in safe hands.”

  Jamie picked at some chocolate and then took a sip of coffee, because she didn’t want to make eye contact with Brett. There was only one guy she was worried about, and he was sitting directly across from her. He might trust himself, but she wasn’t entirely sure that her thoughts were as pure.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JAMIE PADDED BAREFOOT into the kitchen and fed Bear. She poured herself a glass of water and leaned on the counter, slowly drinking it, concentrating on the cool liquid and how it felt as she swallowed.
It was the only thing she could think of to calm her nerves, other than going for a run, and after the time she’d spent in the shower and doing her hair, she had no intention of getting sweaty.

  What was she doing?

  It wasn’t the fact that she was going out that was making her feel guilty, because she was in desperate need of doing something fun that got her out of the house. Her problem was that she couldn’t stop thinking about Brett, and it was making her feel things that she had no right to feel.

  She’d dolled herself up, made more of an effort than she had in months to look good, and it was Brett she was trying to impress. It was as if all the years of flirting had finally caught up with them, and with Sam not here, things were starting to feel awkward, fast. Or maybe not so much awkward as exciting.

  “Brett is forbidden. Brett is my friend,” she muttered, realizing that she was looking at her dog as if he were part of the conversation. “Tell me I’m crazy, Bear. I’m crazy, aren’t I?”

  He just stared up at her, pausing, before going back to eating his dinner.

  Jamie sighed and dumped her water glass in the sink before walking back to her bedroom and looking at the clothes she’d thrown on the bed. She had her little black dress, a pair of satin pants and a sexy top, and her favorite skinny jeans. She reached for the dress and held it up, looking at her reflection in the floor-length mirror behind the door.

  She wanted to wear the dress. She wanted to make Brett notice her. She wanted to feel sexy.

  Jamie stripped down to her underwear and slipped on the dress. She was about to reach for a pair of five-inch black heels that she’d never worn before, that were just stuck in her closet, when her hand stopped moving. Everything stopped. Because just above her shoe rack, hanging on a little hook, was her husband’s dog tag on its silver chain.

  Jamie slowly reached for it, fingers clasping the cool metal, tracing over the tag that she’d spent so many hours staring at since he’d gone. The same tag that she’d often touched when they’d been lying together, in bed on a lazy morning….